A few hours after Theresa May’s third attempt at passing her Brexit proposal was voted down in parliament, I found myself in the bar of a hotel in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong, sat across from a soft-spoken, erudite man whose gentle manner seemed incongruent with his reputation as one of the most renowned, celebrated journalistic icons of the past decade. From Edward Snowden to Jonathan Aitken, from overseeing the transition of The Guardianfrom a “printing paper in Britain” to “a prevalent, prominent global voice” to witnessing the “arrival of the digital age”, Alan Rusbridger in many ways exemplified the importantly political role journalists play – in holding governments to account, exposing injustices, and speaking truth to power. They are, as Hannah Arendt puts it in Truth and Politics, truth-tellers.
We started the interview with an Elephant in the Room – where I asked Alan what his thoughts and predictions on Brexit were. Alan suggested, “Theresa May may attempt once again to force through her deal. ” – somewhat presciently, in light of May’s recent comments. “It’s unlikely to work.” He concluded, after noting that Westminster would be trying to identify the least unpopular alternative in light of the fact that No Deal was not an acceptable outcome, politically or rationally. An extension of Article 50 could well be possible, accompanied by the General Election, or a 2ndvote on something – what such something would look like, it appears few folks actually knew.
In reflecting upon the politics that precipitated Brexit, Alan noted that the increasingly entrenched divide between Oxbridge-educated elites and the masses, the “have-it-all” and “have-nots”, has “poisoned Brexit”. There had always been individuals opposed to the EU, he noted, but the combination of an overwhelmingly Eurosceptic popular press and vociferous instigation on social media gave the Brexit movement popular momentum, only to be amplified by Oxbridge-educated politicians who found political rewards in leading a Eurosceptic, pro-Leave movement. In particular, Alan was disappointed by the extent to which particular politicians were willing to abandon or distort the truth in order to service personal ends.
“Does truth really matter?” I asked Alan, citing the scrutiny of the notion of the truth in recent postmodernist and critical theoretical literature. Alan was upfront, “I don’t read much critical theory, but I think it’s generally good to be skeptical.” Alan recalled – at a sharing session he hosted with students at South Island School, Hong Kong, he encouraged students to ask questions about the news they received, “Who are they? What’s their background? What are their motives?”
“No one is hankering for a world where we should accept media and take truth as handed down to us. Such a world is fundamentally undesirable.”
Yet it would behoove us, Alan cautioned, to recognise that the case for skepticism did not imply that we should believe that there is no such thing as truth. In the age where truth seems to be no longer present, it is ever-important that the concept and volume of truths are upheldagainst cynicism that is often over-sophisticated. It was unclear to him why “Mainstream Media” was an insult – the view that it was insulting assumed both its homogeneity and the errors of truth-telling reporting. Brexit was, in his opinon, a very good illustration of the dire consequences when what anyone said about anything could be taken to be true. The sheer unwillingness of Brexiteers to engage the facts and views of 25,000 Nobel Prize laureates, security chiefs, and diplomats arguing for Remain suggests that there truly is “…one side in the political debate that feels like they do not have to address any arguments at all”. Alan did not hold back in calling out the gimmicks of ‘post-truth’ politicians.
“You go on a journey when you’re a young reporter.”
Alan had never imagined, when young, where he would later end up as a journalist. He noted that most young journalists tended to see their careers as jobs, without thinking deeply about the political implications and value of their work. Only when he became an Editor did he realise the importance of situating his craft within wider, more theoretically abstract, perhaps, debates over values.
As Editor, he found himself copying with revolutions to the craft and that challenged the very meaning and core principles of journalism – and thus found himself thinking more deeply about articulating and exploring the genuine value in journalism within society. He became interested in questions such as, “How do we justify power?”, “How do we hold it together?”, “How do we defend it?” – the intellectual thought processes that perhaps would be unsurprising for a man who spearheaded some of the greatest attempts at holding large governments and corrupt politicians to the highest level of meticulous scrutiny.
When asked to reflect on his legacy as the Editor of The Guardian, Alan confessed that it was incredible to “inherit an amazing, 170-odd-year-old newspaper”. He reminisced the work he did alongside his colleagues, in “enabling reporters and journalists to do the work that matters”; he saw himself as a facilitator, the supporting mentor behind the limelight – publicity and attention never suited Alan, as he couched his legacy in terms of building the “fundamentals of a business model that remains a work in progress”. He was humbled by the changes that had occurred under his leadership, and particularly impressed by the wisdom of his colleagues, who steered The Guardianto build their first website in 1997 and latch onto the social media revolution in the mid-2000s.
“We obviously got some things wrong”, Alan admitted, “but no one has ever had it 100% right.”
Alan is now the Principal of Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. He reflected upon the new shoes he held by starting with the observation that “somethings are very familiar.” He found that academics and The Guardian’s journalists shared a lot of similarities, in both collaboratively researching and working towards the truth in their distinct ways. The 18-22-year-old window was a crucial stage of any individual, he added, where students became cynics who were simultaneously open to new and well-tested ideas. His excitement at being around both undergraduates and graduates propelled him to commit the same level of rigour and ardent dedication to his new role, as he had to his previous post.
I asked Alan about the foundational year scheme that he spearheaded at Lady Margaret Hall. He recalled the inception of the idea when he was at a pub in Dublin, and was drinking with the Provost of Trinity College Dublin; the work Trinity was doing then with admissions and access inspired Alan to transpose the model to Oxford: taking people from very disadvantaged backgrounds, and offering them opportunities that they seized upon, in many cases, in becoming just as good as if not better than their more privileged peers. Alan saw the programme as equipping individuals – who had been unable to get into Oxford for socioeconomic reasons – with the confidence to overcome the hurdles imposed by severe background inequalities.
Alan spoke highly of the Oxbridge system: he saw it as an incredible way of teaching and changing minds. Yet he also warned of the dangers of admitting an excessive narrow group of well-endowed and privileged individuals, who would thrive and flourish – but potentially at the expense of their less endowed peers. “If your life is spent entirely at public schools like Eton, followed by a stint in Oxford and a career at the Inns of Court, you’re likely to end up becoming one of those individuals who seemingly have never met ordinary people.” Referring to the filibustering proclivities of a certain, infamous MP, Alan was bemused and slightly exasperated as he mused, “Is this for real?”
“We have the obligation to give people more opportunities to prove their potential.”
By helping others access education, not only do these less privileged individuals benefit – but those who are born to and raised in comfortable circumstances would also benefit. “Rubbing shoulders with individuals who do not have very well-off parents teaches us key life lessons,” Alan added.
I probed Alan here for his thoughts on the increasing awareness of the lived experiences of individuals across campuses, and the introduction of measures such as safe spaces and no-platforming movements. We both quickly agreed that there was a need to distinguish between these different policies and measures – it would be foolish to conflate trigger warnings with safe spaces, and safe spaces with all forms of no-platforming, a favourite tactic employed by conservative reactionaries.
To the extent that Alan had experienced them, he replied, he had found safe spaces to be genuinely helpful; it enabled individuals who were confronted by oppression, or who cared about their identities, to debate and engage more confidently with politics and their studies. Contrary to the assertions by certain critics, he thought that these students had genuine concerns and understandably strong emotions. Alan further noted that inequality in natural access to resources and discursive platforms must be rectified and tackled – if one platform has a gigantic printing press, then other platforms without comparable levels of resources would lose out; there was nothing problematic about getting people to think about offense and harms induced by thoughtless or aggressive, prejudiced speech.
Yet Alan also warned of the prospective dangers of individuals’ ignorance about arguments in defense of free speech; he was concerned that students were no longer exposed to rigorous justifications for free debate and expression. As the former Guardian of The Guardian, he held the view that the best argument would only emerge from more speech – which was why he found it important to allow multiple voices into the paper, to allow for challenges and disputes.
We closed the discussion on the politics of speech with Alan’s thoughts regarding the branding adopted by certain student societies – e.g. the Oxford Union – to defend “free speech for free speech’s sake”. Alan responded by confessing that he found such rhetoric “tiring, though not obnoxious”. Such rhetoric was tiring, for the controversy was “predictable” and should have been expected.
“Wouldn’t it be more interesting to have speakers who engage with speech and others on a more human level?”
Obviously, he argued, a university ought to be able to accommodate extreme speech within the law, but to say that it could accommodate is one thing; to argue that it should actively endorse is another. A great university ought to be about nuance and sophistication, as well as showing the existence of shades of gray between two polar extremities.
Our conversation returned to the broader political implications and problems confronting print journalism and newspapers today. During his address at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club on Wednesday night, Alan observed the imperative for the press to get back to reporting on objective news with accuracy and integrity. I pressed him on this point – noting that reporting “objectively” with “integrity” seems increasingly unprofitable but also fundamentally unable to connect with individuals who resonate more strongly with the emotivism and identitarian politics embraced by fake news outlets. Indeed, the very weaponisation of “fake news” as a label by the likes of Trump suggested that journalism of integrity seemed to no longer be in vogue.
Alan partially conceded, noting that skepticism towards the press had indeed been amplified and granted curecy by demagogues who made it a mission to delegitimise and attack even the best news organisations, with the intention of planting seeds of doubt and blurring the lines between what was or wasn’t true. Tabloid journalism, he quipped, is by far better than broadsheet journalism at playing at emotions and picturing the truth through slogans and human-centric stories. Tabloids engage with “human narratives”, as opposed to ideas – and on a side note, Alan confessed, there were very legitimate criticisms about how broadsheets often write “cleverly” but in ways that were detached from the everyday lives of ordinary people; The Guardianwas no exception.
On the subject of fake news, Alan quipped that it would be foolish to believe that we could regulate social media platforms, on which untrue news had been widely disseminated (from prior to the Brexit Referendum to during the US elections). “How many social media outlets could afford to do this?” Alan pondered, noting that having regulations for social media outlets across 188 countries was vastly infeasible and practically difficult.
“A lot of journalists are stuck on the narratives that we are the alleged ‘watchdogs.’ of government, or that we are defenders of truth. It’s not that these statements are untrue, but slogans like these no longer work in ascertaining trust from the public.”
Instead, the change must originate in existing journalists – they must become more rigorous, more dedicated to the truth, and more willing to accept their intellectual shortcomings. Journalists should not be “reluctant about linking and referencing”, he added, alluding to the advice he dispensed in many of his writings, including his new book, Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now (2018).
Some said that Alan’s book is three books in one, Alan flagged, noting that his new book was part memoir, part descriptive historical study of the Digital Revolution from the inside, and part outlining where all of this is going. The business model of the printing press could only follow from persuading the public that there was something valuable about the press and journalism in the contemporary age.
“We have to get the public on our side; we need public support for what we do. The best way to defend ourselves against the forces of disinformation is by creating a case for why they need journalism.”
Alan saw journalism as an essential service; comparing it to other key services (e.g. fire service, water provision), he pensively, quietly articulated his view that society could not function without a functioning press. Whilst we must be honest about the limits of journalism, we must not also forget the many who have put themselves repeatedly in danger – such as Marie Colvin, who was targeted and killed by the Syrian regime under Bashar al-Assad, whom Alan cited as someone who exemplified the most elevated form of what journalism was here to do. From the Philippines to Pakistan, from Russia to Turkey to Mexico, journalists have a key and vital political function to play.
“There are few jobs, other than the military or the police, that you go into being prepared to die. Journalism is one of them.”
Listening to his address at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and hearing his thoughts at the interview allowed me to appreciate the authenticity of Alan’s conviction as he concluded with these words of adamant defiance. A journalist turned newspaper helmsman turned academic administrator, Alan Rusbridger has made an impressive mark in the world with his uniquely forthcoming brand of journalism, exemplifying what it truly means to speak truth to power.